By his own admission, Neil Turner has been covering the fortunes of Chester Football Club since ‘1900 and frozen to death’.

The BBC Radio Merseyside stalwart has been part of the furniture at the Blues since the late 1980s and is now in his 40th year in radio broadcasting.

The milestone followed a similar one for the station he works for as they celebrated a half century on the wireless back in November.

The euphonious sounds of Turner have been familiar to Chester fans through the highs and the lows.

Exile in Macclesfield, a return to Chester, promotions, relegations, extinction and rebirth - Turner has witnessed and delivered his verdict on them all from behind the microphone.

Now 70, the passion for broadcasting and the Blues who he has taken to his heart has never diminished, and shows no signs of abating.

And it was a favour for a friend that began it all.

“It was a phone call one Sunday from a pal of mine, Ray Stubbs, who I played football with,” recalled Turner, who began his working life as a buyer with Littlewoods after leaving university.

“Ray was running the Sunday Football Show at the time and he asked me how I was fixed for one Sunday. ‘I’m desperate for someone to help me out on a Sunday League game’, he said. He asked me whether I fancied it and I had to help him out as he was a mate in need.

“I did one report and then another the following week and it just evolved. Eddie Hemmings was the sports editor at the time and started giving me Saturday games.

“I covered the opening game of the opening day of the Premier League in 1992, the Everton and Sheffield Wednesday game. I did the Howard Kendall interview after the game.

“After the game I interviewed Howard and asked him what he thought the impact of the Premier League would be. He said there would be no impact apart from more money, and more money for players. That quote has stuck with me and how apposite that comment was. It was so very true.”

A life behind the microphone covering sport followed a successful sporting career of his own.

Neil Turner during his athletics days

As a youngster Turner was an apprentice at Blackpool and went on to play for the likes of Bangor City and Skelmersdale United, earning a reputation as a formidable defender.

And he also shone in athletics, earning two Great Britain vests in the 110m hurdles as well as a couple of Lancashire Championships to add to his success.

While football was the main focus of his broadcasting career Turner also covered other sports, with one particular incident springing to mind involving Zola Budd and an anti-apartheid group of protesters.

“I didn’t just do football,” he said.

“I was sent in February 1985 with a news reporter, Henry Sellers, and we had one of those old brick mobile phones.

“Zola Budd was a South African who wanted to qualify, via her mother, for the Great Britain team. She entered the cross country event, the British Championships, in Arrowe Park and part of our job was to get interviews with her if we could do it.

“When she was warming up I was going round with this mobile phone ready to interview her. So, I started. ‘Zola, good to be on Merseyside’, I said, to which she replied simply ‘yeah’.

“I then asked her what it would feel like to be a South African representing Great Britain. ‘Good’, she replied. I was getting one word answers all the way round.

“We got a little bit of an interview with her before Henry took over for his news bit. There was a BBC TV news camera crew nearby and they started filming us. Suddenly about half a dozen anti-apartheid protesters came at us and rugby tackled us to the ground. Nothing happened to poor Zola but because we had the temerity in a job to talk to her we got tackled.

“This then went on the news that evening and went out worldwide. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live.”

While Turner has covered many a big game involving Merseyside’s heavy hitters, it is Chester where his heart and allegiances lie.

Unsurprisingly, when the question is posed as to who is favourite manager he dealt with for the Blues might be, he is unequivocal - Harry McNally.

He said: “At Liverpool you look at Shankly, at Chester you look at Harry. He kept the club together, he and Ray Crofts (former chairman).

“He had a squad of 18/19 players. That was a tight-knit unit. They weren’t the best players in the world but when they went across that line boy did they want to play for Harry. He gave them some awful stick but when they came off he ingratiated with them.

“I remember one time at Leek Town in the FA Cup. He told me to come through the door after the game. As I opened the door a tray of tea came flying at me, a few expletives at the players and then he went from that outburst to the most fluent after-match interview you could imagine. I was drenched with tea.

“He gave them five minutes of hell but everyone wanted to play for him. He was a tremendous motivator.

“Dear Harry was a great friend of mine. Without a doubt he was my favourite but Ian Atkins did a brilliant job in nearly saving the club from relegation in 2000. And Graham (Barrow) did a very good job, particularly in 1994.”

That 1993/1994 promotion season under Barrow was one of the high points for Turner during his time covering the Blues but it wasn’t his favourite.

He said: “The two seasons at Moss Rose stand out for me because it was very much a trench mentality, it was the world against you, the world against the core group of supporters who were making the journey.

“There were two journos covering the club then - myself and Ian Bedford from the Chronicle. Those two years at Moss Rose the club was totally together.”

And it was during that time at Moss Rose that provided him with the most memorable moment for him personally when he got to sit alongside a hero of his who also made him a half time cup of tea.

Said Turner: “One of my favourite games was in September 1990 when Arsenal came to play in a cup tie. My great hero was Sir Bobby Moore, what a tremendous talent he was.

“I was sitting next to him and a guy called Jonathan Pearce, who was working for Capital Radio. I was talking to my great, great hero and what a nice man he was.

“At half time he went down and came up with one of those old banged up jugs of tea and those horrible polystyrene cups. He said ‘Neil, what do you want?’. I replied ‘just one sugar, please’. Here was the only Englishman who had ever lifted the World Cup pouring me a cup of luke warm tea at half time into this polystyrene cup. It was a fabulous experience.”

Besides broadcasting, Turner is also active in the business world and runs a thriving management consultancy which has contracts in the retail sector in the UK and Europe.

He also works in sports management, offering advice with marketing, PR and player image rights issues.

And despite a busy life away from football, Turner, who lives in Pulford with his wife Doreen, has no intention of hanging up the microphone any time soon.

“It’s been varied, it’s been chequered but it one of the loves of my life has been the club and following the club. I’ve seen all the ups and downs and the media has changed immeasureably,” he said.

“But assuming the stations want me and assuming the big man up there keeps me going then I plan to carry on. I still enjoy it even though I get a bit of earache from my wife - and quite rightly at times.”